Once when I was young
by LethalCrown
Summary: This is a songfic. The song is Once When I was Young by Tom Chapin. I don't own it. Very Philinda/Mayson, mild spoilers for early season 2.


Once when I was young

**This is a Philinda songfic. The song is by Tom Chapin and Avengers belongs to whoever owns marvel. I own nothing.**

'Twas in the year of plenty I was first out on my own

With no one to look after me, no money, car, or phone

I took a leap out in the deep, headfirst on the run

Thick as a brick, I could take a lick, once when I was young

He was just starting in SHIELD. From the first time he saw her, she caught his eye, but he only truly noticed her when he first saw her pranking. Her eyes were laced both with controlled amusement and warning. He got the message; don't tell their S.O. that if he walked in that he would get drenched in heavily perfumed water.

It's worth his rage and subsequent bad attitude towards everyone to see her poker face. She is not suspected even for a minute.

I met you in a club downtown, do you remember when

Every night was a red light, every vagabond a friend

I must have sounded pretty lame as I tripped over my tongue

But maybe you were awkward too, once when I was young

The first time they meet outside of work, it's entirely a coincidence. It's one of their nights off, and they happen to see each other at the bar. They start to talking, and he is relieved he doesn't seem to make a complete fool of himself, relieved she doesn't immediately leave. She seems to enjoy his company, and it's amazing how chatty she can get, compared to the cold façade she wears when at SHIELD. He wonders how many people know this side of her, if he is the only one she opens up to.

He hopes so.

In the half light of the streetlamp, your beauty shone like day

When you took me to your room I could not turn my eyes away

You put your lips against my lips, tongue against my tongue

I thought my heart would blow apart, once when I was young

He knows there are protocols and rules: they shouldn't be assigned to the same team, they should change S.O.'s, they should relocate to different bases. He knows, but he can't bring himself to care. Besides, what they have is mutually pleasurable, but neither of them would compromise a mission for the other. Their objectivity remains unchanged. They don't have true feelings for each other. He repeats this mantra to himself every time he catches sight of her.

But lying beside her sleeping form in bed, he knows he is lying.

Sometimes, I dream of silver

Sometimes, I dream in gold

Sometimes, I dream of you, my love

To keep me from the cold

When he thinks of her, when he is all alone, he allows himself to contemplate a future for them. A future which might, someday, involve not running constantly, dodging gunfire, patching each other up in shabby motels with scavenged first aid kits. A house, rather than their bland, SHIELD issued rooms. A daughter who can learn martial arts from her mother. A son for him to teach about right and wrong. A cat maybe (he knows she hates dogs for their reliance and blind loyalty, but admires cats for their willful independence). A life where the worst danger will be scraped knees, bloody noses, and loose teeth.

Then you got me crazy frantic when you finally turned away

I couldn't sleep at all at night, I stumbled through the day

I was lost, tossed, double-crossed, I was stranded, I was stung

I almost died of wounded pride, once when I was young

Bahrain happens. And suddenly, her wondrous amusement is gone. Her smile, her laugh, her casual touch, gone. Her stone, ice-cold mask never leaves her face. Her eyes, the one part of her face that expressed emotion are cold and hard. She acts like the agent she always pretended to be, without any of the little quirks that he had come to recognize over the years. He wishes she would just tell him what happened, share with someone, anyone.

A part of her has died forever, he knows. That much is obvious.

Sometimes, I dream in amber

Sometimes, I dream in jade

Sometimes, I dream of you, my love

And the promises we made

He has come to realize that whatever they had between them, whatever shreds of emotion, died in Bahrain, with the certainty that comes with acceptance. He realizes that maybe this is what she needs. Stability. Time to heal. Space to heal.

But he thinks a part of him has died, too.

But promises are broken, and yours was first to go

You married in the wintertime, my heart froze hard as snow

Your husband never challenged me 'bout what he must have heard

I worked beside him twenty years, he never said a word

He realizes that this might be her way of healing. He thought he understood, thought he had accepted all of her changes. But this feels so wrong, that this new Melinda May would transfer to administration, which they had always made fun of. That she would wear colors other than black when not undercover.

That she would _get married._ That cuts the deepest.

I see you in the club tonight, we nod just like old friends

I look down at your wedding band to break my heart again

You close your eyes and stare at me, I see the ring is gone

I follow you into the night, like once when we were young

After her brief affair, brief time of cordiality, and subsequent defeat of Grant Ward, he breathes easier at night. Sure, someone they trusted had betrayed them, and, sure, their life's work was in shambles, but now the atmosphere was more like life-can-do-nothing-worse-to-us. It was torture to think, even for a moment, that she had possibly betrayed them, and he is ever-so-glad that's over. But now, they're working together. Building SHIELD again, brick by brick. Better, stronger, more stable than before. There are no more secrets between them.

But he still won't let himself dream again.

Sometimes, my dreams are black and white

Sometimes they're ruby red

Tonight, I dream of you, my love

Beside me in this bed

So this is their family, he now knows. There will be no freedom from fear, no life away from this one, but that in itself feels truly freeing. Skye is the daughter they will never have, and May will teach her like he had once fantasized. Fitzsimmons are their children also, brilliant in sciences, but still so young. Although Jemma now seems almost weary, as he knows going undercover in the enemy can make a person. Fitz is bad when she is gone and worse when she returns, but he can see some of their friendship re-establishing with every step forward he takes. And May has recovered some of her old self. Not all of it, he knows, but enough that he can sometimes see the laughter in her eyes, enough that he hears the caring in her voice and sees the trust in her eyes when she looks at him.

And he knows, as her rhythmic, deep breathing lures him into sleep, that neither of them will have any nightmares as long as the other is here to warn them away.


End file.
